Sunday, January 11, 2015

Retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney had a blunt assessment of the terror attacks that killed at least 12 in Paris on Wednesday, telling a Fox News audience that a major driver of the violence was that those in positions of leadership refused to face the realities of radicalized Islam.

"Political correctness is killing us," he told "Fox & Friends," adding that the nation's leaders needed to wake up to the dangers of the religion in order to keep America safe.

The attacks left two police officers and several members of the Paris-based satirical newspaper, Charlie Hebdo, dead. Witnesses said they heard the attackers shout out "the Prophet has been avenged," and "Allahu Akbar," various media reported.

France President Francois Hollande, meanwhile, has labeled the attack an act of terror and placed the city on high alert.

The newspaper - firebombed in 2011 after it published a cartoon of the prophet Mohammed - had actually just printed a new cartoon on Wednesday morning that depicted Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi at a podium, making a statement.

Now It’s Really Time to Stop Pretending Liberals Want You to Live Your Life How You Want

GLAAD Condemns Lifestyle Choice of Mormon Families

GLAAD, an aggressive LGBT lobbying group, hasn’t been following the above act for a while — and nor have plenty of liberals — but its latest campaign is as good an example as any of the Left’s open intolerance for orthodox religion and any dissent from sexual liberation.

TLC is about to show a one-hour reality program on a few Mormon males who say they’re attracted to men but have chosen to marry women and have children.

GLAAD thinks broadcasting these grown men’s choices — and, by all accounts and appearances, happy, healthy lives — is simply too “dangerous,” and “downright irresponsible” of TLC. (You might be hazily thinking, wasn’t there a show about religious people handling lethally poisonous snakes that was broadcast basically without hiccup? Yep, there was.)

The group has found 88,000 ostensibly tolerant liberals also trying to keep the show off the airwaves, who have signed a petition asking TLC “to stop telling America that LGBT people should lie to themselves and to their faith communities about who they are and who they love.”

If you’re thinking these petitioners should stop telling these four random Americans that they’re betraying their faith communities and lying about who they are and whom they love . . . well, good luck explaining that to GLAAD.

“The men featured in this show deserve to be shown compassion and acceptance,” the petition demands — compassion and acceptance here, I guess, defined as “telling a few random strangers their lives and faith are dangerous and dishonest.”

The crux of GLAAD and other organizations’ complaint is that TLC’s show promotes “ex-gay” therapy, to reverse homosexual attractions, because GLAAD, alongside a number of state governments who’ve banned the therapy, thinks it’s dangerous. Oddly, it’s not even clear that is featured in the show, or that these men believe therapy can change their attractions (a scientifically controversial concept). The entire point of the show is that the men say they still have homosexual attractions but choose to live by other values. This, by GLAAD’s lights, is obscene.

Of course, conservatives protest against obscene content, too, because they believe some things are wrong and dangerous, too. We’re just long past time when the cultural Left could begin to claim its opponents were the real orthodox censors, indicting helpless individual heretics. The culture war is two-sided — at best.

And yes, here, GLAAD isn’t trying to wield the power of the state to suppress religion and demean individual conscience. It and its backers have the right to sign all the petitions they want. In fact, maybe they should go right ahead: They’re doing a nice job clearing up where there’s no tolerance to be had these days.

Look, all GLAAD’s asking of these guys: Just keep your true self in the closet. Along with your wife and kids.

The Spiked Online group of journalists appear libertarian in many of their instincts. I remember attending talks by many of these people back in their Marxist days in the early 1990s. Yet Ann Furedi, former Marxist, writer for Spiked Online, and head of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, now opposes the right of opponents of abortion to protest outside clinics! She references JS Mill in her opposition to such protests.

Her recent article argues that “bubble zones” should be created outside abortion clinics within which demonstrations should be illegal—presumably she wants state power to enforce this. While she admits the number of protesters is vanishingly small, the small number of protests that take place should lead to arrests, according to her.

Ann Furedi is trying to have things both ways. She says:

"Another unfortunate and predictable consequence is that many in the media have been prone to present the women bpas is defending as ‘victims’—firstly for needing abortion, secondly for facing bullying and harassment at the clinic’s entrance. This is just the image of women that bpas has fought hard to counter. In truth, most bpas clients are ordinary women in need of straightforward, simple clinical treatment in a place where their privacy and confidentiality is respected and they are answerable only to those who provide their care."

In other words, she has long claimed that abortion is a straightforward medical procedure, akin to sorting out an ingrown toenail, and that the women involved are not “victims” and should not be subject to the type of counselling that assumes there is a moral problem with a decision to have an abortion. In other words, abortion is a normal decision made by a grown-up woman who doesn’t need her hand held. She goes on:

"When women say they are reduced to tears and feel unable to cope with the challenges made to them by protesters, when they say they feel vulnerable and distressed, this is not an expression of their weakness as women, nor is it evidence of the alleged awfulness of making abortion decisions. No, even the strongest among us can feel brittle and scared when we are about to undergo a medical procedure – even one that is not as emotionally loaded as abortion."

Clearly she is also arguing that such women are too vulnerable to be able to give short shrift to protesters outside abortion clinics. I would argue that, reading between the lines, she does look down on the women attending abortion clinics, and views them as fragile victims who should never be confronted with the fact that other people regard abortion as evil.

I could imagine a libertarian perspective—not mine—that said that abortion should be legal on demand, but that demonstrations immediately outside the clinic must be accepted, and the women should be prepared to run the gauntlet of protest if they wish to kill the foetuses inside them. I would also argue that Ann Furedi and other employees of BPAS should be arrested (and imprisoned) for wasting police time if they ever call for police assistance in an unwarranted fashion: there is a law against harassment, but the bar for a harassment suit is necessarily high in a free society, and the police should not be summoned to prevent a woman from facing protest alone.

Ann Furedi says:

"Women attending an abortion clinic should not have to face anyone whose intention is to interfere with them or engage with them. They should not need to face people on the street asking about their circumstances or decisions. They should especially not need to face individuals with banners, placards and cameras, determined to ‘counsel’ them about what an abortion involves. A clinic entrance is not a debating forum or a street theatre. Bpas clients are not seeking a political discussion about abortion with anyone; they are seeking advice or treatment from a provider that they have chosen, and they should be able to access that service without people arguing that their decision is wrong or right."

Women having an abortion should not have to face anyone seeking to engage with them? Time to get out the cotton wool, girls!

All this is based on a distinction between “the right to freedom of speech” and “the right to freedom of protest”. Ann Furedi argues:

"Traditionally, within the classical liberal tradition of John Stuart Mill, the right to protest was understood to be ‘contingent’, and as such is different to freedom of speech, which is ‘absolute’….

Freedom of speech, as properly understood (that is, the freedom to state one’s views for the purpose of being understood), cannot curtail the freedom of others because it impinges on no one but the speaker. It is sometimes described as ‘self-regarding’, in that its purpose is self-expression. For Mill, the premise for freedom of speech was ‘affirmation and respect for the individual’s moral agency and autonomy’. In short, to take away someone’s ability to express their thoughts through speech was to deny them a means to express their internal contemplation—their inner life….

Freedom to protest is different. It can impede others’ rights and freedoms; indeed, that may be its very intention—and when it does, the question of whose freedom triumphs rests in the balance of a number of factors. The law may limit the right to protest by curbing access to certain areas; or brute force may impose limits, as was the case in clashes between fascists and anti-fascists in the 1930s, or between loyalists and republicans in Northern Ireland in the 1970s and 80s—or, indeed, in a milder way by local residents outside the bpas clinic in Southwark in London recently."

Clearly, the right to free speech, which includes private speech, is absolute. To be arrested for private comments would be monstrous in a free society. The right to freedom of protest is, as she points out, subjects to considerations of appropriate venue and timing. An anti-abortion protest that insisted on blocking the M25 every Friday would be tiresome—as it would go well beyond the form of protest required to make a political point and would disrupt other people’s legitimate activities.

The reason why this consideration does not apply to an abortion clinic is that there is a debate over where abortion is a legitimate activity. Protesters outside BPAS centres are not seeking to make political points—but, rather, to persuade the women not to kill their foetuses. It is a last chance to appeal to the girls to do the right thing. I think the legalisation of abortion in 1967—a legalisation the terms of which are commonly ignored by doctors who hand out abortion on demand (which is not legal)—did not envisage a situation where abortion was to be regarded as a normal medical procedure. It was legalised as a bad last resort—and nothing should be done (including the criminalisation of protest outside abortion clinics) to imply to the girls that nothing abnormal is going on inside the clinics.

Ann Furedi’s clinics offer destruction of life: while I don’t wish to attend protests myself, I do admire those who feel strongly enough to do so. If they persuade even one girl to turn back, then their work is worthwhile.

The abortion issue is, for me, one of the key problems with Spiked. On many questions, their views have evolved since the winding up of the Revolutionary Communist Party (of which Ann Furedi was a member) in 1994. Yet on this issue (and on immigration), we see unreconstructed propaganda from the 1970s—possibly because Ann Furedi makes money from abortion.

It would make more sense in the context of the evolving views of Spiked to tell the girls to take charge of their own fertility—by using contraceptives and morning after pills—and to accept the consequences of their own actions otherwise. These “girls” are meant to be adult women, but as long as there are never any consequences to their chosen forms of behaviour, they will remain infantilised, adult-sized girls, which calls into question the whole of the feminist agenda.

America's social justice movement has reached a critical turning point. The left's bravest young warriors for change have turned ... back to 1989 and borrowed costumes from Janet Jackson's "Rhythm Nation" music video.

Clad in black-ops black from head to toe with fists held high, stylin' members of the so-called "Black Brunch" brigade look like they're ready to break into some old-school New Jack Swing dance moves. And 5, 6, 7, 8!

But seriously, all you hate-mongering, racist oppressors. You must banish your colonialist, imperialist and patriarchal impulses to mock. The "comrades" (yes, they really call themselves that) who don the solidarity-enhancing Black Brunch costume are sending a revolutionary, transformative message: This is war! On your omelettes.

This weekend, an organizing manual obtained and published by the Weasel Zippers blog (which was subsequently knocked offline for 12 hours by retaliatory activists) explained the Black Brunch agenda. Only those who are "black and of the African diaspora" received the guide. Black Brunch, they were told, is "a form of resistance and a direct action tactic" to "reclaim our humanity and right to unapologetically hold space in public."

By "holding space in public," they mean storming into a private business and screaming in your face while you're spending your hard-earned money as other hardworking people try to make a living serving up a nice meal.

The farce, of course, is that this impudent "resistance" movement deliberately chooses marshmallow-soft targets where they will encounter absolutely no resistance of any kind to their trespassing.

Black Brunchers didn't stomp their way into truck stops, police cafeterias or military bases. They targeted privileged liberal enclaves in Oakland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Baltimore and New York City over the past month to raise the consciousness of unsuspecting midmorning diners. The Black Brunch bunch earned their badges of courage by barging into coffee shops, blocking lines at hummus snack stands and even grandstanding at an Apple computer store (huh?) where sympathetic hipsters and pliant employees simply rolled over.

Note: The only clubs the enemy enslavers wielded were their club sandwiches. The only sticks in sight were cinnamon cocoa stirrers.

While annoyed parents covered their hungry toddlers' ears, the grievance-mongers whipped out their smartphones to document their disruption of "white spaces." Protest pics STAT! One defiant Black Brunch marcher asserted on Twitter: "We take up the space that's so often denied us in society and grieve collectively." Another intrepid combatant courageously castigated her enemy (from the safety of her keyboard):

"ATTN WHITE Man, I have no guilt disturbing your brunch. Its (sic) YOU that has no right to be here."

Actually, several photos of the protests showed non-white customers and employees suffering along with the rest of the Privileged White Supremacists. But no matter. No justice, no quiche!

Opposing racism now means practicing it in the most obnoxious manner possible. The Black Brunch bigots painted every innocent customer as a practitioner of "genocide." One participant ordered people of color to "STAND in deference and solidarity." Another accused a black restaurant manager of "internaliz(ing) white supremacy."

This self-indulgent overreach is a hallmark of modern leftist organizers. During the Bush administration, the illegal-alien activist movement was overrun by reconquistadors burning American flags and chanting La Raza hate slogans as they demanded full amnesty and government benefits. Under President Obama, Occupy Wall Street devolved into a circus of rape tents and defecators.

Post-Ferguson, the social justice mob has now looted and burned down stores in its own working-class neighborhoods, cheered the execution of white and minority police officers, and alienated its erstwhile allies with destructive temper tantrums. In Portland, left-wing agitators threw a hissy fit at Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden's town hall — just as a 100-year-old veteran was being honored for his World War II service.

These entitled thugs have beclowned themselves, plain and simple. Their worst enemies are the ones in the reflections of the windows they're smashing. The worst racists are the ones smirking in their own Instagram selfies.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

Background

The most beautiful woman in the world? I think she was. Yes: It's Agnetha Fältskog

A beautiful baby is king -- with blue eyes, blond hair and white skin. How incorrect can you get?

Kristina Pimenova, said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair

Enough said

There really is an actress named Donna Air. She seems a pleasant enough woman, though

What feminism has wrought:

There's actually some wisdom there. The dreamy lady says she is holding out for someone who meets her standards. The other lady reasonably replies "There's nobody there". Standards can be unrealistically high and feminists have laboured mightily to make them so

Some bright spark occasionally decides that Leftism is feminine and conservatism is masculine. That totally misses the point. If true, how come the vote in American presidential elections usually shows something close to a 50/50 split between men and women? And in the 2016 Presidential election, Trump won 53 percent of white women, despite allegations focused on his past treatment of some women.

Political correctness is Fascism pretending to be manners

Political Correctness is as big a threat to free speech as Communism and Fascism. All 3 were/are socialist.

The problem with minorities is not race but culture. For instance, many American black males fit in well with the majority culture. They go to college, work legally for their living, marry and support the mother of their children, go to church, abstain from crime and are considerate towards others. Who could reasonably object to such people? It is people who subscribe to minority cultures -- black, Latino or Muslim -- who can give rise to concern. If antisocial attitudes and/or behaviour become pervasive among a group, however, policies may reasonably devised to deal with that group as a whole

Black lives DON'T matter -- to other blacks. The leading cause of death among young black males is attack by other young black males

Psychological defence mechanisms such as projection play a large part in Leftist thinking and discourse. So their frantic search for evil in the words and deeds of others is easily understandable. The evil is in themselves. Leftist motivations are fundamentally Fascist. They want to "fundamentally transform" the lives of their fellow citizens, which is as authoritarian as you can get. We saw where it led in Russia and China. The "compassion" that Leftists parade is just a cloak for their ghastly real motivations

Occasionally I put up on this blog complaints about the privileged position of homosexuals in today's world. I look forward to the day when the pendulum swings back and homosexuals are treated as equals before the law. To a simple Leftist mind, that makes me "homophobic", even though I have no fear of any kind of homosexuals.

But I thought it might be useful for me to point out a few things. For a start, I am not unwise enough to say that some of my best friends are homosexual. None are, in fact. Though there are two homosexuals in my normal social circle whom I get on well with and whom I think well of.

Of possible relevance: My late sister was a homosexual; I loved Liberace's sense of humour and I thought that Robert Helpmann was marvellous as Don Quixote in the Nureyev ballet of that name.

I record on this blog many examples of negligent, inefficient and reprehensible behaviour on the part of British police. After 13 years of Labour party rule they have become highly politicized, with values that reflect the demands made on them by the political Left rather than than what the community expects of them. They have become lazy and cowardly and avoid dealing with real crime wherever possible -- preferring instead to harass normal decent people for minor infractions -- particularly offences against political correctness. They are an excellent example of the destruction that can be brought about by Leftist meddling.

I also record on this blog much social worker evil -- particularly British social worker evil. The evil is neither negligent nor random. It follows exactly the pattern you would expect from the Marxist-oriented indoctrination they get in social work school -- where the middle class is seen as the enemy and the underclass is seen as virtuous. So social workers are lightning fast to take children away from normal decent parents on the basis of of minor or imaginary infractions while turning a blind eye to gross child abuse by the underclass

The genetics of crime: I have been pointing out for some time the evidence that there is a substantial genetic element in criminality. Some people are born bad. See here, here, here, here (DOI: 10.1111/jcpp.12581) and here, for instance"

Gender is a property of words, not of people. Using it otherwise is just another politically correct distortion -- though not as pernicious as calling racial discrimination "Affirmative action"

Postmodernism is fundamentally frivolous. Postmodernists routinely condemn racism and intolerance as wrong but then say that there is no such thing as right and wrong. They are clearly not being serious. Either they do not really believe in moral nihilism or they believe that racism cannot be condemned!

Postmodernism is in fact just a tantrum. Post-Soviet reality in particular suits Leftists so badly that their response is to deny that reality exists. That they can be so dishonest, however, simply shows how psychopathic they are.

So why do Leftists say "There is no such thing as right and wrong" when backed into a rhetorical corner? They say it because that is the predominant conclusion of analytic philosophers. And, as Keynes said: "Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back”

Juergen Habermas, a veteran leftist German philosopher stunned his admirers not long ago by proclaiming, "Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of Western civilization. To this day, we have no other options [than Christianity]. We continue to nourish ourselves from this source. Everything else is postmodern chatter."

Consider two "jokes" below:

Q. "Why are Leftists always standing up for blacks and homosexuals?

A. Because for all three groups their only God is their penis"

Pretty offensive, right? So consider this one:

Q. "Why are evangelical Christians like the Taliban?

A. They are both religious fundamentalists"

The latter "joke" is not a joke at all, of course. It is a comparison routinely touted by Leftists. Both "jokes" are greatly offensive and unfair to the parties targeted but one gets a pass without question while the other would bring great wrath on the head of anyone uttering it. Why? Because political correctness is in fact just Leftist bigotry. Bigotry is unfairly favouring one or more groups of people over others -- usually justified as "truth".

One of my more amusing memories is from the time when the Soviet Union still existed and I was teaching sociology in a major Australian university. On one memorable occasion, we had a representative of the Soviet Womens' organization visit us -- a stout and heavily made-up lady of mature years. When she was ushered into our conference room, she was greeted with something like adulation by the local Marxists. In question time after her talk, however, someone asked her how homosexuals were treated in the USSR. She replied: "We don't have any. That was before the revolution". The consternation and confusion that produced among my Leftist colleagues was hilarious to behold and still lives vividly in my memory. The more things change, the more they remain the same, however. In Sept. 2007 President Ahmadinejad told Columbia university that there are no homosexuals in Iran.

It is widely agreed (with mainly Lesbians dissenting) that boys need their fathers. What needs much wider recognition is that girls need their fathers too. The relationship between a "Daddy's girl" and her father is perhaps the most beautiful human relationship there is. It can help give the girl concerned inner strength for the rest of her life.

A modern feminist complains: "We are so far from “having it all” that “we barely even have a slice of the pie, which we probably baked ourselves while sobbing into the pastry at 4am”."

Patriotism does NOT in general go with hostilty towards others. See e.g. here and here and even here ("Ethnocentrism and Xenophobia: A Cross-Cultural Study" by anthropologist Elizabeth Cashdan. In Current Anthropology Vol. 42, No. 5, December 2001).

The love of bureaucracy is very Leftist and hence "correct". Who said this? "Account must be taken of every single article, every pound of grain, because what socialism implies above all is keeping account of everything". It was V.I. Lenin

"An objection I hear frequently is: ‘Why should we tolerate intolerance?’ The assumption is that tolerating views that you don’t agree with is like a gift, an act of kindness. It suggests we’re doing people a favour by tolerating their view. My argument is that tolerance is vital to us, to you and I, because it’s actually the presupposition of all our freedoms. You cannot be free in any meaningful sense unless there is a recognition that we are free to act on our beliefs, we’re free to think what we want and express ourselves freely. Unless we have that freedom, all those other freedoms that we have on paper mean nothing" -- SOURCE

RELIGION:

Although it is a popular traditional chant, the "Kol Nidre" should be abandoned by modern Jewish congregations. It was totally understandable where it originated in the Middle Ages but is morally obnoxious in the modern world and vivid "proof" of all sorts of antisemitic stereotypes

What the Bible says about homosexuality:

"Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; It is abomination" -- Lev. 18:22

In his great diatribe against the pagan Romans, the apostle Paul included homosexuality among their sins:

"For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature. And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.... Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them" -- Romans 1:26,27,32.

So churches that condone homosexuality are clearly post-Christian

Although I am an atheist, I have great respect for the wisdom of ancient times as collected in the Bible. And its condemnation of homosexuality makes considerable sense to me. In an era when family values are under constant assault, such a return to the basics could be helpful. Nonetheless, I approve of St. Paul's advice in the second chapter of his epistle to the Romans that it is for God to punish them, not us. In secular terms, homosexuality between consenting adults in private should not be penalized but nor should it be promoted or praised. In Christian terms, "Gay pride" is of the Devil

The homosexuals of Gibeah (Judges 19 & 20) set in train a series of events which brought down great wrath and destruction on their tribe. The tribe of Benjamin was almost wiped out when it would not disown its homosexuals. Are we seeing a related process in the woes presently being experienced by the amoral Western world? Note that there was one Western country that was not affected by the global financial crisis and subsequently had no debt problems: Australia. In September 2012 the Australian federal parliament considered a bill to implement homosexual marriage. It was rejected by a large majority -- including members from both major political parties

Religion is deeply human. The recent discoveries at Gobekli Tepe suggest that it was religion not farming that gave birth to civilization. Early civilizations were at any rate all very religious. Atheism is mainly a very modern development and is even now very much a minority opinion

"Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" - Isaiah 5:20 (KJV)

I think it's not unreasonable to see Islam as the religion of the Devil. Any religion that loves death or leads to parents rejoicing when their children blow themselves up is surely of the Devil -- however you conceive of the Devil. Whether he is a man in a red suit with horns and a tail, a fallen spirit being, or simply the evil side of human nature hardly matters. In all cases Islam is clearly anti-life and only the Devil or his disciples could rejoice in that.

And there surely could be few lower forms of human behaviour than to give abuse and harm in return for help. The compassionate practices of countries with Christian traditions have led many such countries to give a new home to Muslim refugees and seekers after a better life. It's basic humanity that such kindness should attract gratitude and appreciation. But do Muslims appreciate it? They most commonly show contempt for the countries and societies concerned. That's another sign of Satanic influence.

And how's this for demonic thinking?: "Asian father whose daughter drowned in Dubai sea 'stopped lifeguards from saving her because he didn't want her touched and dishonoured by strange men'

And where Muslims tell us that they love death, the great Christian celebration is of the birth of a baby -- the monogenes theos (only begotten god) as John 1:18 describes it in the original Greek -- Christmas!

No wonder so many Muslims are hostile and angry. They have little companionship from women and not even any companionship from dogs -- which are emotionally important in most other cultures. Dogs are "unclean"

On all my blogs, I express my view of what is important primarily by the readings that I select for posting. I do however on occasions add personal comments in italicized form at the beginning of an article.

I am rather pleased to report that I am a lifelong conservative. Out of intellectual curiosity, I did in my youth join organizations from right across the political spectrum so I am certainly not closed-minded and am very familiar with the full spectrum of political thinking. Nonetheless, I did not have to undergo the lurch from Left to Right that so many people undergo. At age 13 I used my pocket-money to subscribe to the "Reader's Digest" -- the main conservative organ available in small town Australia of the 1950s. I have learnt much since but am pleased and amused to note that history has since confirmed most of what I thought at that early age.

I imagine that the the RD is still sending mailouts to my 1950s address!

Germaine Greer is a stupid old Harpy who is notable only for the depth and extent of her hatreds

There are also two blogspot blogs which record what I think are my main recent articles here and here. Similar content can be more conveniently accessed via my subject-indexed list of short articles here or here (I rarely write long articles these days)

Note: If the link to one of my articles is not working, the article concerned can generally be viewed by prefixing to the filename the following: http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/42197/20121106-1520/jonjayray.comuv.com/

NOTE: The archives provided by blogspot below are rather inconvenient. They break each month up into small bits. If you want to scan whole months at a time, the backup archives will suit better. See here or here